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User blog:Long Patrol Girl/Essay: Religion of Redwall (REBUTTAL)
A Christian Rebuttal My rebuttal of the Redwall is Christian and Martin is Jesus argument. FYI, taken from a Christian stand point, so if I offend you with my beliefs of God, you don't have to read this. Redwall Does Not Have a Religion. Redwall is known for not having a religion. There's no praying or sacrifices, no worship time or any thing like that. I particularly like that BJ is not trying to hype a religion, be it any. There are just straight out children's book, no indoctrination in them. Now, yes, some people might go, "But there's an Abbey!!!!!! That is blatantly Catholic or Monotheistic or Christian or in the blank!!!!" Okay, so it is called an Abbey. But, do they teach people about God/a god? No. Do they make everybody worship? Not really. They do, however, enforce a code of basic niceness. The basic, "Be nice, Don't steal, Don't lie, Obey Your Elders, etc., etc." Okay, I know atheists/no religious-y types that try to be nice. So, really, that is just basic manners, not the way to save your soul. The definition of "religion from the dictionary on my computer is "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power". Do Redwallers believe/teach this? No. Thus, there isn't a religion. Some people will also say that Abbey+Abbot/Abbess+Brother/Sister=Catholicism. Okay, so you're righting a story. You want your good guys to have a little place to "chill out" and be peaceful. How about...Redwall Stronghold? LAME. Redwall House? Weird. Redwall...Avenue? HUH?! Redwall Church? That sounds funny. Redwall...Peace Club? AWFUL. Redwall...Ummm...Redwall...Abbey? Eh, that'll work. So, it's an Abbey. What the heck, we'll throw in an Abbot. Yes, yes, people think because of that it automatically makes it religion based. If you think that the Abbey has a Religious Doctrine, then maybe you might want to reread the first three paragraphs to see how, yes, I can't say that "REDWALL ISN'T CALLED REDWALL ABBEY", so I admit, it's called an Abbey. But Saint Ninians Church was called a church, yet nothing ever happened there. Sister and Brother does also not necessarily dictate a religious order behind it. It can mean "a close female/male companion" or "fellow human being (or animal being, I guess)." Oh, and you might even have the gall to go, "Well, what about Saint Ninians!?" Well, other than the fact that it is actually "thiS AINT NINIANS" and "thi" fell off, sort of like how "land" was removed after the collapse of the "Hollywoodland" sign, Saint Ninians wasn't really meant to be Saint. And isn't it interesting how it was burnt? Hmm, could BJ be trying to get rid of it? Possibly. He might have realized that he didn't want as must religious stuff and given it the boot. Martin the Warrior is NOT Jesus Let's take a quick refresh of Jesus. #Jesus is the Son of God #Jesus died on a cross and rose from the dead three days later #Jesus died so that if we pray to God and ask forgiveness, we'd be forgiven from our sins. (I could add a few more, but I'm going to be basic so I don't get in trouble and so I don't get a bunch of Christians with different ideas about stuff yelling at me.) Did Martin do anything at all similar to that? #Martin killed Tsarmina Greeneyes at the end of Mossflower. #Martin comes back as a ghost to people basically saying, "Hey, you need to protect your Abbey. Go do it," but he says it in a cryptic poem. So...Martin is a mouse version of Jesus...How, exactly? He's not. Martin is a mouse warrior guy who saves some woodlanders. Does he save them from sin? No. Did he raise from the dead? Not really, unless a ghost and only appearing in dreams is raising from the dead to being ALIVE again. Which it's NOT. Was he the son of God? NO. End of story. (Authors Note: Now, I know some sects of Christianity believe that Jesus appears to people in dreams and signs and wonders and whatnot. Now, I don't believe that He does, so I skipped over that for that reason and I know that some people will disagree with me on that.) To Sum Up... The Redwall series is a children's book. Nothing more. Nothing less. People who try to say this are taking the "reading between the lines" idiom to new heights. I'm sorry, but you can be a hypo-annalist, and I have to stop myself from being one sometimes too. There's no secret code of Redwall in my mind. No, BJ is not trying to hypnotize you into being a Christina/Catholic/Communist/Anarchist/Monarchist/Buddhist/Nature-worshiper/Witch/anything else you can fathom-ist. I mean, there's a difference between getting inspiration for names and such and making something indoctrination-grand-central-station. You're psychoanalyzing a book that is meant for 4-6th graders, for Pete's sake! It's a plainly fictional book that is one of the best out there for kids now-a-days, better than Warriors (Which I have read and now wish I didn't), better than Twilight, better than most other books you could throw at me that are meant for my reading level. But I digress. Let me leave you with this brilliant quote from Jacques himself: "What I'm doing is telling a story. People who try to dissect my words are sadly disillusioned." Category:Essays Category:Blog posts